Seeing Things As They Truly Are.

It had been one of those days and now all of a sudden it was 8:30pm and I had a kitchen full of dirty dishes and a daughter, who was meant to be asleep, standing at the top of the stairs shouting “Mum! Mum!” I took a deep breath and headed for the hall. “Nell, I have 101 things to do tonight! What is it?” There was a pause and Nell smiled. “Mum, you do not have a 101 things to do tonight.” She said this with such honesty and innocence, I burst out laughing because once again my seven year old daughter had shook me out of my self pity and back into the present moment. She was right. I was exaggerating and swimming in self righteousness. We had a good giggle about it together and I took the time to sing her a song and help her get to sleep. What is more important than that?

This is one of the reasons I practice yoga, to grow this particular strength in me. The strength to see things as they truly are, no better and no worse. As you can see, I still have a lot of practicing to do but I truly believe if I had not been doing yoga for the past eight years that scene on the stairs could have gone a completely different way. But the second Nell gave me the opportunity to witness life in a different light, my awareness kicked in and grabbed the chance to see things as they truly were, no better and no worse.

As human beings we have a tendency to dwell on the dark side don’t you think? We get caught up in our own worlds which takes us down a winding road of destruction all because our focus was on ourselves. Now, yoga does encourage you to go inwards but through a different lens - it’s not all about you, it’s all about us.

Part of my yoga practice is putting myself in the other persons shoes. I believe trying this is the biggest gift you can give yourself and your fellow human beings. When I get angry or upset at how someone else has treated me I am so grateful when my “practice” kicks in and I remember to take the time to think why they could have reacted the way they did. It calms me down and diffuses any situation from getting out of hand, after all, we are only human and we are all equal.

What if we all learned to master our emotions? No name calling, no violence, but real, honest communication. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a plan to help humans to do this anytime soon but I have a sneaky suspicion the answer is already with us and for me, personally, that answer is yoga.

Namaste.

Laura x